5 Things I Learned From 2019
I had a rather middling season in my fantasy leagues this year. My Main Event team was a nightmare, but everything else meandered around the middle (save a tough finals loss in my H2H league), looking like a real competitor for weeks at a time and a lost cause in others. Whether you win big, lose big, or land somewhere in the middle, you should learn something from the eight-month grind (including February and March).
Sometimes the Players Fail, Not the Strategy
Gee Paul, really starting off with some self-examination here by blaming the players! I don’t say this to shirk responsibility, but rather to remind myself that a strategy falling short doesn’t automatically mean it’s a loser. That’s where running a similar strategy across multiple leagues with different players can be useful. I really wanted two big arms to headline my rotations this year, but when Noah Syndergaard’s nauseatingly inconsistent year was one of them in many leagues, I was doomed.
In my Main Event, he was joined by Jameson Taillon, so that was neat and cool and fun. In the past I’ve arrogantly leaned on the idea that I will find pitching, whether late in the draft or on the wire so I’ve been lax on drafting frontend pitching (loosely, within the top 100 picks). I still think two anchors is a viable strategy. It’s one I’ll carry forward in 2020, hopefully with next year’s version of Gerrit Cole and Walker Buehler or even more ideally something like Cole and Shane Bieber… one early and one later (Cole went 18th on average, Bieber around 110th).
SB Margins Are Thin Between Success & Failure
I was targeting about 100 SBs out of the draft and at the risk of focusing too much on my Main Event, I’ll point out that I had just 87 there and got 2 points in the category. Reaching the 100 goal, essentially an extra SB per roster spot, would’ve been worth five more points. Now I realized a bit into the season that 110 was likely the right target. Landing there would’ve been solidly mid-pack. Get a little lucky with some guys beating projection and/or adding some via the wire and all of a sudden I’m in the upper third of the league.
Flexibility Paid the Expected Dividends
It’s still hard to quantify exactly how much positional flexibility is worth, but I made it a focus this draft season and I felt it was worth it as I always had a spot for the pickup of the week across my many leagues. The league is also helping here as they are favoring flexibility among their rosters and giving players more positional eligibility.
Don’t Always Need the Biggest Pickup
One of my biggest focuses for 2019 was improving my FAAB process. Knowing the pool in-depth, improving my bids, and structuring my bids based on need. In past years, I focused too much on the top of the pool and then if I missed out on the biggest pickup of the week, I was either skunked altogether or got someone I didn’t really want. This year, some of my best pickups were my third or fourth guys down, namely Lucas Giolito and Tommy La Stella.
And while I never could’ve projected that they’d be as good as they were, I was legitimately excited to get them at the time even though neither was my #1. Now those wins alone don’t convince me that you don’t have to go for the biggest buy every week, but if you do, you will run out of money. We’re just not good enough as a community at FAAB assessment to know that the top buy every week will be the best player going forward (obviously).
While there are exceptions, you probably should be involved in FAAB every week churning the bottom 1-3 spots of your roster. You can often find gold just by showing up. Remember FAABapolooza? It was May 19th in NFBC leagues when Austin Riley, Brendan Rodgers, Keston Hiura, Willie Calhoun, Nicky Lopez, Corbin Martin, and Oscar Mercado were available in the vast majority of leagues (minor leaguers can’t be FAAB’d until they are called up unless they are drafted and dropped). The group ended up as a bust at large and the cheapest of the bunch, Mercado, was the best bang for the buck. Derek Van Riper inexplicably got him for $1 in his Main Event. Show up. Every. Single. Week.
Stop Betting So Much on Unseen Production
While I did have some big hits this year that I’m proud of (you like how I compliment myself in a piece where I’m supposed to be reflective and humble?), I still bet too much on production levels that haven’t happened and costs that require they happen to make the pick worth it. I wasn’t afraid to pay the Vlad Jr. toll and it flopped spectacularly.
It’s OK and even encouraged to buy rookies, but not at a price where they MUST perform. Pete Alonso couldn’t really hurt those drafting him at a 204 ADP. Hell, even those taking him at hish high of 163 weren’t exposing themselves that much. Even Ronald Acuña Jr. as a top 100 pick in 2018 was cheaper than Vlad and had speed protecting his floor. It’s not that you can’t bet on the come with players, it’s where you place that bet. The top 100 is rarely the right place. It’s just adding unnecessary risk to your team.
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So those are a few things I took away from the season. What about you?
“Show up. Every. Single. Week.”
THIS. Just committing to churning the bottom (even while chasing lateral-ish moves) wound up landing me Mike Minor and Mike Soroka because after their 1-week audition (where I fully intended to move on), they spiked mutant starts, allowing a pivot to hang onto them. Boom, staples for the year.
I feel like my takeaway is one I re-learn at least a little every year: no matter how much research or effort you put into it, luck is always a factor.
I am in a relatively shallow weekly HxH 10-teamer with playoffs and while I want to take credit for nailing Devers (11th round) and Chapman (10th) in the draft and picking up Alonso (undrafted) right before the season started when the Mets announced he would make the roster, there is no way in h, e, double L I thought Carlos Santana (13th) was going to have a career year and end up 33rd on the player rater (at my league’s settings, which are goofy). I picked him up as a solid, everyday vet who would contribute OBP (a category in our league). Not as a headliner who was going to set new career highs in basically every category at age 32.
On the flip side, my top 3 pitching draft picks were Sale, Carrasco, and Taillon. I mean, what are the odds? Sale was good, but not great, for 5 months and then went down just as I was heading into the playoffs. Carrasco and Taillon both functionally disappeared after May. That left me with almost literally nothing heading into our playoffs. My #1 was Kyle Hendricks which isn’t completely horrible but honestly, my #2 was probably Anibal Sanchez. My #3 was either Joe Musgrove, Caleb Smith or Wade Miley. That just isn’t a recipe for success in a 10-team league.
But then there is this – especially in HxH leagues, there just is no accounting for the dreaded situation where your opponent has the best week of the year against you. My team set a league record for HR. . . .by a lot. I was 80 HR ahead of the old league record and 45 clear of 2nd this year. And yet. . . .I somehow managed to go 13-11-1 on the year. There were 3 other teams that had more W’s than I did in HR. I led the league in RBI and set a league record in that as well, . . .and went 12-13-0 on the year. I don’t even know how that is possible.
yep in a h2h league, I finished best in 5 out of 10 cats and came in 3rd.
I have noticed this for years: the best FA’s and waiver wire picks come before June. We have to be patient with our top 10 – 15 draft picks but you just have to cut some unproven guys when a Kyle Hendricks, an Aaron Nola, or an injured Corey Seager comes onto the market for next to nothing.
My takeaway for the year is when picking up relievers, go for the guys who the coaching staff and management like, not the shiny new toys that everyone on the Internet has a chubby for. I entered the season with a relief staff of Aroldis Chapman, Arodys Vizcaino, Corey Knebel and Hunter Strickland – only Chapman made it out of March (March!) as a viable uninjured option. I ended up picking up Hector Neris and Hansel Robles for next to nothing on the FAAB wire while other owners were paying through the nose for guys like David Robertson and Ty Buttrey. I got a lot of mileage out of them (and later other guys liked by the coaching staff like Archie Bradley and Seth Lugo).
Nobody on the Internet had a chubby for Vizcaino. Neris was hated by his manager. I don’t know that your methodology has much rhyme or reason to it. RP are simply very volatile and can be had for cheap if you get lucky.
I too picked up Robles and Neris for nothing. Really helped my season.
Good advice.
“…you probably should be involved in FAAB every week churning the bottom 1-3 spots of your roster.”
Unfortunately, I subscribed to that advice in one league. The result was that I dropped inexpensive Howie Kendrick and Neris very early for bright shiny FAs. Big mistake …
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do some churn, but it can backfire.
Neris? Why would you ever have dropped a closer early? Also Kendrick was unlikely to burn you that bad, because a lot of people were forced to drop him, even in deep leagues due to him simply not starting 75% of games for months while being active.
On April 1 when we dropped Neris, it wasn’t clear that he would be the closer.
Good article, I find I always need more patience on people who start slowly for several months, cutting them has always come back to plague me.
My take away from this season is to grab and hold potential and don’t worry about the strategy details until the playoffs arrive. For the second straight year in a competitive 20-team, 9×9 league, I lost a couple of sleeper bats and/or arms around the trade deadline because I got too hung up on how many how many holds and saves I thought I needed rather than just taking quality players and sorting them out at playoff time.
J.D. Davis was the perfect example on this particular team (Adelberto Mondesi the year before). I gave him up to hold onto a marginal reliever when the injury bug hit me in July because he wasn’t getting much playing time. I’d have been much better off waiting until just before the playoffs to fill a specific need with a long shot. No reason to do that mid-season and risk losing out on real contributors.
What I learned was learned years ago – If you’re still playing 5×5, 6×6, 8×8, or whatever, you’re living in 2005. MLB has changed. SB is no longer a meaningful strategy. So why does something that is looked down upon in the modern game count for as much as 20% of fantasy hitter stats? Beats me. Makes no sense. Strategies change!!!
About 12 years ago I created a cutting edge 15×15 league. We use SB, but we use net SB. We use practically everything meaningful without duplication – rate stats, counting stats, old and new school stats. So what’s the advantage? You can build your team in many, many ways. Everyone else going all in for power? Go for average, contact, plate appearances, whatever. The goal was to make it as much like real MLB as possible. We have 162 game limits per position, player add limits, total innings limits, and on and on.
And you know what? Everyone loves it. You have to out-think and hopefully out-draft your fellow league members. You have to be on it every… single… day. Persistence and hard work are rewarded. You can’t just set your team for a week and forget it, or plug in 300 different combinations over a season. It’s FBB for the thinking team owner, it’s realistic, and the proof is in the pudding. Our teams love it.
So my message to league commissioners is to think outside the box. Why keep doing things the same old way? MLB changes – if you don’t, you’re falling behind.
Almost all analysis is specific to the NFBC format. It doesn’t always get mentioned but that is just what people are talking about (whether they know it or not). Those NFBC ADPs end up being everyone’s default rankings because making your own rankings is hard and that bias just gets baked into almost all the rankings. When you see SB overvalued it is an artifact of NFBC. Paul absolutely does NFBC, so that checks out here. I don’t think your average Joe is talking about SBs.
MLB is desperately implementing change as fast as they can – you are not going to be out in front of that. By the time we realize the effects of what they change they will be changing again. Create some new clone leagues and spread the wealth if you think it is a great format. It might be – certainly no down-votes from me.
Positional flexibility is very valuable but it has to fit the team right. Ideally you have some combination of a few guys at every infield spot. Its hard to value because it depends on the larger context of your team.
I tend to strive for one backup at every offensive spot (OF counts as one). So positional flexibility can really pay off and lets me run more pitchers every week.
Guys like Ben Zobrist Martin Gonzalez, Scott Kingery, and Ketel Marte have saved many a season for me.
First time I went with a focus on pitchers early and it did pay dividends (Sale, Verlander, Strasburg). I also found having one elite RP worthwhile.
The main lesson I learned was to be more aggressive on the waiver wire earlier in the year.
this was my first year playing fantasy of any kind, in a 20 (!)-team 5×5 H2H mixed league, w/ OBP and SV+H, and i was very lucky and finished 2nd.
what i learned: safety/floor in early rounds, fliers for upside later, churn the bottom of the roster a lot looking for breakouts early in the season. Take fliers, fliers, fliers. That’s how I ended up with Giolito, Ryu, Workman, Hendriks, H. Dozier, Tauchman, and Biggio. Don’t be afraid to drop flier-type pickups if
they aren’t working out, too; the only flier I regret punting on too early was Narvaez.
Also should not have drafted Vladito in the 3rd (46th) and Severino in the 4th (75th), and was very fortunate to have been able to trade the latter for N. Castellanos just before the extent of his shoulder injury was revealed.
I looked for OBP in offensive fliers instead of HRs or RBIs, and got top-four total OBP and runs (correlation!). I was carried by league-best ERA, WHIP, and SV+H, with top-5 W and K. Pitching staff was insane, esp for such a deep league: deGrom, Ryu, Giolito, Kershaw, 2nd-half Paddack for SP, and mostly Workman, Colome, Hendriks, Bummer, Kahnle for RP.
My big takeaway from the year was that FanGraphs doesn’t post any Roto help in the final weekend of the season. Who knew?
My lesson was “Stay the Course, trust your decisions, and don’t freak out”
I finished 2nd in my season, but sat in 6th for most of it. My team dealt with injury after injury for top players (Scherzer, Altuve, and Stanton—my top 3 picks—were all hurt for a decent time this season). I had a pretty good roster beyond them, but I couldn’t get past the fact that my top 3 picks (in some combo) weren’t available for a good portion of the season.
There were times I thought about making desperate trades in attempt to get a bulk of players in return (I had a Rendon-for-4 players trade lined up). I didn’t.
Trust your draft. Trust your players. Stay the course. It’ll pay off.
Your “bet on the come” craps analogy makes me want to create a new fantasy baseball structure wherein one places bets on where certain players will finish in the rankings. Odds are given based on the further one projects a player from his pre-season ranking, with a minimum distance required. Like, one couldn’t bet on Trout to finish top-10, but could bet on him finishing outside the top 100 at significant odds.